It's been barely more than a week since Avengers Campus opened at Disney California Adventure and already, we have a battle of the Spider-Man theme park attractions. While WEB-SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure was the first Spider-Man themed attraction to be opened by Disney, Universal Orlando Resort has had The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man for years, and now the UOR Twitter account is throwing their trademark shade at the California ride, and its merch.
A fan who was clearly looking for a reaction recently brought a piece of Web Tech, the Avengers Campus merchandise that can modify your experience on the attraction, to Universal's Islands of Adventure, the theme park where Universal's Spider-Man ride can be found. He jokingly complained that the item did not work, and got just the sort of response you'd expect from Universal.
I feel like the lengths that Patrick Dougall went to for this simple joke should be commended, either that or he should have his sanity questioned. The guy went to Avengers Campus, spent $65 on a combined two pieces of merchandise to create the Web Tech item, and then flew to Orlando (or flew to California in the first place to buy the gear) in order to take this picture. It's a solid joke on its own, but if Universal had just ignored him, it wouldn't have been nearly as funny. Well played, everybody.
The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man opened at Islands of Adventure over 20 years ago, and it's still a solid dark ride in its own right. It's based on a more traditional comic book version of the character rather than the MCU version that you see at Avengers Campus. It's all a remnant of a deal Marvel made with Universal theme parks prior to Disney purchasing the company. As it stands, the old deal greatly limits which Marvel characters can appear at Walt Disney World.
It will be interesting to see how the response to Avengers Campus impacts the Marvel area at Islands of Adventure. While the parks are on opposite coasts, growing excitement about the new Avengers Campus could very easily result in more interest in Universal's Marvel attractions as well. If you can't check out Disney's newest attraction, then perhaps going to do Universal's classic ride is the next best thing.
It will also be interesting to see if if Disney looks for ways to end the Universal deal. If Avengers Campus is as successful as Disney hopes, the company may look for ways to do more with Marvel in Florida. At this point, the only thing Marvel currently in construction at Walt Disney World is a roller coaster based on Guardians of the Galaxy, one of the few characters that Universal has never done anything with, giving Disney the opening it needed.
